Voice and tone are two common buzzwords when it comes to generating the right content in order to market your business. They are often thought to be the same thing and as a result, seem interchangeable. But they are two entirely different things and the easiest way to explain it is to think of voice as your company’s personality, and tone as your attitude towards your audience (clients).
Are You Tone Aware?
Who remembers as a child, adults saying “It’s not what you say it’s the way that you say it”? Even then as kids, we were being encouraged to think about our tone. In business today, developing your company’s voice and tone is becoming increasingly important, and never more so than when it comes to online marketing.
Have you ever read an email, text message, tweet or blog post and it’s as if you can almost “hear” the author talking? Everything you read is created with a specific tone of voice. When sitting down to create content, whether it is written or visual, it is extremely important to consider what tone of voice your content will convey to your audience.
In face-to-face conversation, visual cues like hand gestures, facial expressions and pitch help to convey your tone. Online, all of those non-verbal communicators are lost. All that remains to your readers is tone. The tone of your voice is an essential part of generating online content which becomes worthless if it doesn’t work to communicate the specific message of your brand.
Show Your Personality
“Voice” is something that many online content creators overlook, particular in social media where businesses may have chosen to outsource this function to a specialist company for them to manage it for them, or used AI to compose articles, blogs and content for them. But remember voice is one of the most important pieces for connecting with your customers and essential in manufacturing an online presence. The right voice will show your personality, elicit an emotional response from customers, differentiate you from competitors and help to attract the right customers for your brand.
You can have a voice established, but until the tone of that voice is clear to the reader, they won’t know how to interpret it. How your readers choose to interpret your attitude isn’t always up to you, but you can take steps to lead them in the right direction. Your tone can come across in everything from the point of view your content takes, to the visual organisation of a blog post, to how you address your customer.
Emotional Connections
Voice and tone influence your audience in some incredibly important ways. The main power though comes when you are being consistent and can easily evoke strong emotional connections in your target audience, enabling you to achieve:
- Enhanced positioning – Establishing your company’s voice and tone sets your brand apart from the competition.
- Client appeal – Keeping your voice and tone consistent ensures that your clients become familiar and accepting of your brand.
- Prospect Power – Utilising the right tone of voice will help attract people to your brand and keep them coming back.
- Avoid audience alienation – If you bore your buyers, you’re effectively alienating them and driving them away from your site. The right tone of voice can ward off boredom and keep buyers interested.
While it might seem intimidating at first to commit to a consistent voice and tone, it can make a real difference in your brand’s relationship with your buyers ensuring repeat business, increased loyalty and of course plenty of referrals too!
For help in establishing the right voice and tone of voice for your business, or for any other copywriting or content assistance, contact Vicky Boulton at Fuel on 07766 566690 or email vicky@fuelmarketing.co.uk
